How do you tell what app is locking a file in Windows?

June 17, 2004 12:17 PM

Win2K: When a file cannot be moved or deleted because it is "in use," but you have no idea what application is using it, what can you do?
posted by scarabic to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Process Explorer lets you see all the handles open by all processes.

Do a find handle and then force it closed. I have issues with explorer not closing folder handles in XP.

sysinternals.com has many other low level goodies.
posted by Flat Feet Pete at 12:30 PM on June 17, 2004

I get this problem on certain files (usually .avis) for *days*. Reboots won't matter. So, if I just want to delete the damn thing, I create a new text document, then save it using the problematic file's filename (be sure the filetype dropdown is set to all and not ".txt"). Then I delete the now 1kb text file.
posted by Sangre Azul at 12:33 PM on June 17, 2004

FFP that's a better way of handling it than what I normally do:

Reboot into safe mode with command prompt (reboot your computer, then madly hit F8 after the BIOS splash screen, choose Command Prompt Safe Mode), then rename the file to something else. Reboot and see if you broke anything.

Needless to say, I'm in the process of downloading Process Explorer now :).
posted by freshgroundpepper at 12:33 PM on June 17, 2004

Response by poster: Process Explorer did it! Thanks, Flat Feet Pete!
posted by scarabic at 12:48 PM on June 17, 2004

Used a couple of these online guides this weekend to help identify what was what (nothing to download, but don't know their reliability).

Input file name: Sysinfo.org

Look up alphabetically: Task List Programs
posted by Feisty at 12:51 PM on June 17, 2004

XP has a bug where it will try to determine all the meta information of an AVI/MPEG/etc, even if it can never find them. So when you open up explorer to delete the file, it starts searching for the metadata, and locks it up. I've gone in through the command prompt and deleted stuff that way. Pain in the butt.
posted by gramcracker at 3:14 PM on June 17, 2004

Related question: what to do when you have a 0 length file (typically from a P2P app that created the file but never started downloading)? Sometimes I can delete it after a few reboots/ weeks, but not always.
posted by yerfatma at 3:42 PM on June 17, 2004

Windows users, cover your ears.

If anybody is curious what the Unix command for this is, it's fuser. Give it the right flag, and it will even murder all processes using a given file for you. Probably available on OS X.
posted by undecided at 7:52 PM on June 17, 2004